Doris Lessing

Martin Cleaver/Associated Press

In her long and complex career, Doris Lessing, the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature, has traversed the savannas of Africa, the crooked streets of London and the chilly reaches of outer space. Irving Howe once described her as “the archaeologist of human relations,” and she wrote persuasively about politics, feminism, Communism and black-white relations in Africa before moving on to explore the emotional crevices of the human psyche in her groundbreaking 1962 novel, “The Golden Notebook.”

In announcing the award in Stockholm in October 2007, the Swedish Academy called her an “epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny.” The award came with a 10 million Swedish crown honorarium, about $1.6 million.

Ms. Lessing, who was 88 when she won the award, is self-educated -- she ran away from home at age 15. Born to British parents in what is now Iran, she was raised in colonial Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and lives in London.

The 11th female Nobel winner in literature, Ms. Lessing has written many works of fiction, as well as nonfiction, an autobiography and plays. She is still primarily known for “The Golden Notebook,” an early inspiration to feminists. The Swedish Academy said of the book that the burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work and it belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th century view of the male-female relationship.

The novel told the story of Anna Wulf, a woman who wanted to live freely and was in some ways Ms. Lessing's alter-ego. Because Ms. Lessing frankly depicted female anger and aggression, she was attacked as unfeminine. In response, Ms. Lessing wrote: “Apparently what many women were thinking, feeling, experiencing came as a great surprise.”

But Ms. Lessing also felt that focusing only on feminism obscured the other issues raised by the novel. So she always had harsh comments about the movement, many of whose members idolized her. Speaking in New York in 1970, she said, “I've got the feeling that the sex war is not the most important war going on, nor is it the most vital problem in our lives.”

Fourteen years later, she rebuked another American audience, saying that the women's movement should have tried to work with men. “How can you expect things to change,” she said, “if you're talking to yourself?” In 1994, in a very different world from 1962, she again criticized feminism, saying that “things have changed for white, middle-class women, but nothing has changed outside this group.” Asked about her anti-feminist feelings when her work resounded with the issues that fueled the women's movement, she responded, “It wouldn't be enough to say I'm a woman, after all?”

Highlights from the Archives

In the course of her very long and peripatetic career, Doris Lessing has done just about everything, from naturalism to psychological realism, from postmodern experimentation to moralistic fable-making, from science fiction to horror stories.

At 82, Doris Lessing is still just as interested in debating politics as she was 40 years ago, when she published "The Golden Notebook" and instantly established herself as one of the most important literary voices of her generation.

With her own years winding down, Doris Lessing has turned to perhaps the most dizzying perspective of all, the look back over the people, places, loves and sorrows that make up a life. Her book, "Under My Skin: Volume 1 of My Autobiography, to 1949" has just been released to coincide with her 75th birthday.

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